Audio Visual Home Cinema Systems

Experience The Magic Of Immersion

A home cinema installation is designed to offer life-like audio and video accuracy, but it will never look or sound that way if you're watching on a TV - even a large one - because what's really missing is life-like scale. It's the dimension that brings all your films, games and channels alive; without it, home entertainment can deliver only a fraction of its potential. At Empower we design and install systems in the Dorset area.

To enjoy what's really there, think big. Combine the potency of high definition audio with the latest 4K pictures on a screen that fills your field of view and immediately you're part of the action. This is the uniquely immersive quality of home cinema. Expertly designed specifically for your home and family, your home cinema will transform everything you watch into a magical 'being there' experience. It's like turning on a TV, but more absorbing than you can imagine. When your living with real cinema, every night is movie night...

What Is A Home Cinema Installation ?

Think of your new home cinema as an enduring high quality audio and video installation, not the lightweight speakers you'll find bundled with a TV screen. Using proven pro-cinema technologies home cinema transports the excitement of the big screen experience to your home. More than that, expert installers will work with you to customise the system according to your taste, budget and environment. In this way the performance of home cinema is more powerfully focused than any commercial installation, as unique and personal as your home itself.

The definitive home cinema experience involves a big specialised projection screen and projector, together with a multi-channel surround system, which supplies an enveloping sound stage from at least five speakers (with sub woofer support) positioned around the room. Your custom installer may also recommend acoustic treatments to heighten and contain the surround effect, as well as the comfort of home seating to complete the magical chemistry of home cinema immersion.

The project can be as wide as your ambition, but the versatility of custom installation means that you can enjoy immersive room-filling pictures and sound without filling the room with gear. In living areas such as media room extensions and sitting rooms, a motorised cinema screen and projector can be specified together with near -invisible in-wall/ceiling speakers. Even in dedicated cinema rooms, the most discreet, decor-friendly installation is a luxury custom option.

Immersive Pictures

No doubt you’ve heard of 4K resolution. Today’s buzz-word for ultimate picture quality refers to a horizontal resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. There are two main 4K resolution standards. The DCI 4K standard with a resolution of 4096 × 2160 pixels is used in the video
production industry, while at 3840 x 2160 pixels and four times the resolution of Full HD (1080p), the 4K UHD standard is predominantly
applied to residential display devices such as projectors and TVs. So that you experience the glorious colour and clarity of 4K UHD, your
installer will be recommending the latest 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and upgrades to your media box to show 4K UHD content from the
likes of Sky, Netflix and Amazon. Your installer will also ensure that your projector supports 4K UHD and the newest HDMI 2.0 standard,
which offers High Dynamic Range (HDR) capabilities

HDR

Billed as the next big leap in technology beyond 4K, HDR gives the image more contrast between its lightest and darkest areas, so you see more life-like detail and texture. The HDR pictures on smartphones will give you some idea of the effect, but this is produced from combing multiple images rather than cinema HDR, which is generated using enhanced camera technology.

Immersive Sound

Just like the sound systems built into commercial cinemas, a home cinema audio system comprises three speakers positioned around or behind the screen and carrying left, centre and right channel sound according to the original multi-channel film mix. These are joined by two surround speakers providing the surround sound for an enveloping sound effect, and a subwoofer which handles the bass or Low Frequency Effects (LFE) channel.
This is the 5.1 configuration (five full range channels and a single bass channel) of sound formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS. Later versions of these formats - Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio – split the surround sound into four separate channels, adding side speakers in the process to create a 7.1 configuration.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are also designed to carry Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, the very latest surround sound formats, which add overhead sound for the most realistic surround effect. These new formats are created using an “objectbased” technique which allows the studio engineer to place individual effects anywhere in the sound field. Dolby Atmos requires at least one pair of height speakers (either in-ceiling, or upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers) for a 7.1.2 channel set-up, but the format can be extended to include, for instance, a further pair of height speakers for a 7.1.4 channel configuration. DTS:X on the other hand works with a regular surround sound speaker system and has no specific demand for dedicated height channels.

Immersive Comfort And Design

The seating element of every system is where the sensation of home cinema really begins!
Most ranges have a modular format which allows your installer to specify a straight, curved or tiered arrangement with the style and finish that meets your needs exactly.
And because every home is unique, so is the cinema within it. The design of your bespoke cinema room is an art form in itself, balancing aesthetics, high performance and environment in a precision-tuned unity that offers so much more than the sum of its parts. When you’ve made your choices, the installer will do the physics, calculating the precise location of the loudspeakers, screen and other elements according to industry standards so that every seat becomes the focus for a compelling chemistry of audio and video realism, raised to a life-like dimension by the magical experience of genuine home cinema. Far exceeding the largest
TVs in the power to entertain, the immersive scale of home cinema will ensure you’re not just watching the story, you’re taking part…